Good question David. Especially given the OCs they brought in to run their offense. I have often ponder this thought as well. My guess was the head coaches didn’t have enough self confidence and were intimidated by Bell’s offensive knowledge and perhaps selfishishly feared he would over shadow them.

David. Muschamp would not agree with you. Muschamp is never going to be pleased with or implement the type of fast-paced, wide-open offense that Bell runs with little to no emphasis on or concern with defense. Just not the Muschamp way. The new OC at South Carolina tried to open it up during the first game SC played this year and Muschamp called him out in the press after the game, even though they won the game. Just imagine if Bell was his OC. Muschamp would fire him after game one, no matter the score of that game.

Maybe that’s why Muschamp was unsuccessful at UF and is headed toward mediocrity at USC. Although he said all the right things at UF, I always felt he saw offense as a necessary evil. I’m only partly kidding when I say I think Muschamp’s ideal game would be a 2-0 victory with his defense somehow recording a safety for the win on the last play of the game. He would rather go three-and-out, if he thought he could gain field position on the punt, than to take any kind of risk to move the ball and score points. Either it didn’t occur to him or he didn’t care that he put his defense in the position of having to play a near perfect game in order to win.

BTW, other than the obvious fact that you don’t want to turn the ball over and put your defense in difficult field position, what concern or emphasis should the offense have for the defense besides scoring points and handing the defense the lead. If the offense scores TD’s, and obviously Kerwin’s offense does, it forces the opponent to play catch-up and allows the defense a margin of error that Muschamp’s offenses never have nor ever will with his present mindset.

And yet (sorry), I recall the Texas teams he coached on as being fairly potent on offense too, so how did he wind up this way? Mack Brown, love him or hate him, was a pretty good judge of talent and Muschamp was his head coach-in-waiting. Maybe you’re right, Joe….maybe he really is headed toward mediocrity at S.Carolina. What a shame.

Kerwin Bell will always be one of my favorite Gators. A walk-on, and back-up to the back-ups, he was the unlikely leader of what was arguably one of the greatest Gator teams of all time.

The players on the ’84 team paid a high price for Charlie Pell’s NCAA indiscretions. The conference took Florida’s first SEC title away from them. Then they were ineligible for the SEC title they would have won on the field in ’85.

Kerwin has proven himself an excellent coach in both high school and college. I always hoped the ‘Throwin’ Mayoan’ would find his way back to the Gator sideline as an offensive coordinator. Thanks for having him on the podcast.

Late to the game here, but I always wondered why Bell never could get to the sidelines at Florida except for the one year with Spurrier. In that year, Bell, along with Spurrier and Reeves, found the quarterback to take Florida to the next level of elite status. He’s a great offensive mind. If you couple him with an aggressive defensive coordinator I believe that football program would be unstoppable. He’s had good seasons, has a great offensive mind, but there must be some reason he doesn’t fit at Florida. He’ll never be able to coach under Mullen due to philosophy differences. So best of luck to him in his coaching career. The Throwin’ Mayoan. That limp into the endzone in 1986 is the loudest I’ve ever heard that stadium. Yes, louder than 97. We shook the foundation that afternoon.